Merv

Merv was an oasis city on the Murghab in southeastern Khorasan. Sacked by Tolui’s Mongols in 1221, it was rebuilt but never recovered; it later passed to the Kartids of Herat.

By 1380 Merv belonged to Timur’s empire. Uzbeks took it in 1505, but Shah Ismail I expelled them in 1510. It later became an independent Qajar principality; the Bukharan amir Shah Murad killed its ruler Bayram Ali Khan in 1785, then razed the city, destroyed its dams and deported its people in 1788 and 1789.